Optical storage -- like, CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs and BD (Blu-ray) -ROMs-- are nearing the end of their life cycles. That's pretty amazing -- especially for DVDs and Blu-ray -- considering how little time they've been around.
CDs have been around for quite awhile, true, and it took awhile for them to knock out the vinyl analog for music. But for data; CD-ROM's have 65 times the storage of floppies (at the time) and it only took a couple of years to knock out floppies as the removable medium of choice.
Just a couple of years ago DVD-ROMs started pushing CDs aside for software and data distribution, but a week or so ago I watched a fellow at a car shop swapping around a stack of 14 or so DVDs for a shop manual database and it was easy to see that the day of the DVD-ROM is near over.
The database also comes online, which makes some sense, but the guy at the shop says that it's too slow that way, even with a cable broadband. Even so; with 32 and 64 GB flash drives available; why not dump the data on one of those and mail it out? Doh!
I don't mean to say that all optical storage is already dead. For music; the CD has some more years to run before all-solid state or downloadable forms take over completely. It's probably about the same for movies on DVD and Blu-ray. But for portable data storage? It's almost a done deal.
A lot of data still gets distributed on CDs but the trend toward higher capacity DVDs is already pushing CD's out. And as far as personal or small-business data transfer or backups go; the bother of burning CD-R or DVDs is very quickly being supplanted by flash drives for the former and flash drives
Actually; it's pretty much wiped out already. Not many folks burn CDs any more. Too slow.
But you get my point. Optical is over. Burning optical storage is too slow. Period. Flash drives don't give opticals a chance with performance. Carrying optical drives is inconvenient when compared to flash drives. Don't even try to argue that one. Put four CDs in your pants pocket first; then argue it. And that doesn't even count the format hassles with DVD-ROM drives; ACK! Or the cost-to-performance issues with Blu-ray burners. (Who has one???)
Somebody just announced a 320GB BD (i.e., blu-ray) burner. It's going to cost a bazillion dollars, take forever to burn a disk and then, it's going to have serious format compatibility issues with Blu-ray disk readers. Why not just go buy a 500GB or 1TB (!) external drive for $150 or so, get faster transfer rates than a burner or even a Blu-ray reader can give you, and, of course, universal compatibility with just about any operating system ... even your favorite DVR.
Oh boy; optical is sooo over.
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